<b>A TEMPLE KITCHEN. DIAMOND MOUNTAINS. NORTH KOREA</b> / Elizabeth Keith1920<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

 Elizabeth Keith first traveled to Tokyo when she was 28 and remained there for 8 years. While in Japan, she produced paintings and watercolors of her travels in Asia. Exhibiting her work to much acclaim, Keith quickly garnered the eye of Watanabe Shozaburo, the Shin Hanga publisher, who hired the artist to produce designs for his woodblock print studio.

 In this design, Keith shows the viewer a rare glimpse inside the kitchen of one of the most famous temples in the Dimond Mountains, North Korea. The design features a cook stirring the pot of a rather large vessel while an attendant keeps the fire ablaze. In the distance, a woman carries a container overhead filled with ingredients. A picture of the god of the kitchen hangs overhead. The scene is populated with a smokey atmospheric effect created by the circular barren work throughout the design that unorthodoxly extends beyond the confines of the composition and extends to fill the entirety of the margins. The smoke-like printing effect is lively and imbues the composition with drama and mysterious allure.

Connoisseur's Note

This Keith design from 1920 is an exceedingly rare work. The great Kanto earthquake of 1923 destroyed the original Watanabe print shop and studio, including the printing blocks and unsold inventory for this design. Only impressions of this design sold before and removed from Tokyo survived the earthquake and ensuing fires that consumed the city. This work's desirability is further bolstered by the North Korean subject, as this way of life and the region's indigenous culture has been radically changed, perhaps even lost. In addition to being a striking work of art, this design has become an important cultural record of this region at the time of Keith's visit.